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Olympian Savanah Leaf in 2012
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Writer/director Savanah Leaf
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Leaf with lead actress Tia Nomore
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Tia Nomore
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Leaf on the set with Tia Nomore
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The director on the set
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Leaf with cinematographer Jody Lee Lipes
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EARTH MAMA B+ USA Great Britain
(97 mi) 2023 d: Savanah Leaf
Anyone who has ever
struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor; and if
one is a member of a captive population, economically speaking, one’s feet have
simply been placed on the treadmill forever. One is victimized, economically, in a thousand
ways—rent, for example, or car insurance.
Go shopping one day in Harlem—for anything—and compare Harlem prices and
quality with those downtown. ―James
Baldwin, Nobody Knows My Name, 1961,
The Price of the Ticket: Collected Nonfiction: 1948–1985
Adapting her own short film into a feature-length film
debut, this film has its roots in THE HEART STILL HUMS (2020), made with Waves actress
Taylor Russell, a 30-minute short that documents the lives of five single women
of color as they fight to be with their children in the foster care system,
struggling through a cycle of poverty, drug addictions, and their own parental neglect
in a system of structural inequality seemingly designed to keep people trapped
in cycles of hopelessness, as it has a tendency of tearing families apart. Told without an ounce of pretension, this quiet
yet excruciatingly realistic, near documentary film showcases the life of a smart
and resourceful single black mother who is pregnant, Gia (Oakland rapper Tia
Nomore), whose two young children are already in foster care, where her life
with them is reduced to a single hour once weekly, which is heavily supervised,
subject to a stream of meetings and classes, along with constant drug
tests. Set in the Bay Area community of
Oakland, it’s a wrenchingly emotional experience, which may mirror the
experience of many impoverished black women who are subject to generational
trauma from a child welfare system in place that takes away their children,
exactly as they did with their mothers, and the mothers before that. Continuing that inescapable cycle, Gia lives
with her sister who deals drugs out of their home, leaving her subject to
continual scrutiny, avoiding random home inspections at all costs, knowing the
inevitable outcome. What’s
overwhelmingly effective is the eye-opening realization of just how routine
this experience has become for poor black women, who don’t have the resources
of other women, with no positive role models, where suspicion and distrust go
hand in hand with the powers that be, where it feels all but impossible to
effectively change this one-sided imbalance of power, where the state has all
the rights, and the actual mothers have very few, where the consensus view is
that mothers pose an inherent threat to their children because of their addiction
problems. For most viewers, this is
unexplored territory, offering insight into a world that is completely off the
radar, where you might think there may be little viewer connection, but the no-nonsense
and completely authentic performance of Nomore is poignant and tenderly affecting,
where this entry into her world is like entering foreign territory, resembling
a war zone, where she is isolated and kept from her young daughter and son, who
themselves grow distant and incommunicative, blaming their “captivity” on their
mother, as they can’t return home, feeling hijacked by powerful forces they
can’t understand. The social realist
style pulls no punches, demonstrating no showy techniques, simply allowing
viewers to immerse themselves in Gia’s world, bringing empathy to every frame, where
it’s hard not to be sympathetic, as the entrenched system provides her such a
bleak existence, having a deadening effect on her soul. Rarely has the mundane daily routine felt so
brutal. This film has a way of introducing
us to someone we may never get to know in real life, and even if we did, we
would not appreciate the unseen layers that provide the foundation of her
existence, as her journey is an interior one, nearly invisible to the naked
eye, historically ignored and completely invisible in the eyes of society, yet
all she really wants is to protect her kids because no one was there to protect
her.
Leaf was born in London, coming to America at age 7, and was
a 2012 Olympian at the age of 18 for Great Britain in the sport of volleyball,
but also played AAU basketball until she suffered a career-ending injury, where
her evolution into the world of cinema started by studying photography and
making music videos, while in this film she mostly uses a non-professional cast. Opening to the nearly forgotten music of
Bettye Swann’s 1969 recording of Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye
- YouTube (3:46), it offers a romantic portrait of love that seems just out
of reach, but yearned for, becoming an essential component of the film. What follows may be the most confrontational
moment in the film, as a black woman (Tiffany Garner) takes the stage and
offers her view in a therapeutic confessional sequence, “It’s my journey. No one else’s journey. Nobody can walk in my shoes. You can hold my hand; you can look back from
a distance. You still won’t feel what I
feel. You still won’t look at that from
my point of view.” Without providing any
back story, this is a film that never judges these women, or the caseworkers
they’re forced to contend with, so viewers never realize what mistakes the
women have made, only that the doors have been closed behind them. A story of conflicted emotions, very
observational, even meditative, where the day-to-day is searingly etched into
our minds, Gia makes the rounds between classes, training sessions, and mandatory
support groups that she is required to attend, growing frustrated at the lack
of progress, while also working as a photographic assistant at the Photo Magic store
in the mall, helping set up each of the family portrait shots of young couples
and families with new children, telling them how to pose, arranging their
clothes and their positioning for the camera, creating perfect moments that
will help provide lasting memories, while also hanging out with a small circle
of female friends afterwards, each commiserating with their struggles, where we
get an idea what the women are going through.
Her best friends are Trina (Tampa rapper Doechii), who’s also pregnant,
but worries about lapses in Gia’s judgment, though her domineering religious
views eventually become alienating, citing Bible verses about God’s plan, while
later in the film she feels more drawn towards Mel (Keta Price), a childhood
friend who recently lost her own mother, casually yet affectionately calling
Gia “Mama,” a term with incendiary implications, especially for black women,
snapping back at her at one point, “I am not your mama,” as it implies a
sympathetic role of providers and nurturers, with black women being mothers not
just to their own children but other people’s children throughout history,
becoming housekeepers or nannies, which harkens back to slavery days when black
women mothered the slave-owner’s children.
She is also affectionately called this same term by the guys hanging out
in front of her home, a reminder of how they see her, which is always in
relationship to her children. Perhaps
the most surprising scene eloquently comes from two men, Earl (Bruhfromlastnight)
and James (James Allen), recounting their experiences as children being ripped
away from their mother’s arms and placed in group homes, sending them into
emotional turmoil, eradicating their stability, all in the name of their
“well-being,” but nothing was ever the same for them afterwards, as they were
internally damaged, with something broken that could not be fixed.
In 2018, it became more publicized that the federal
government was officially separating undocumented immigrants from their
children as a matter of Zero Tolerance American policy, not just temporarily,
but permanently, with no tracking process or records that would allow them to
be reunited, placing thousands of children up for international adoption (The
Secret History of Family Separation).
The director reframes this tragedy through the prism of race and class,
asking some of the most fundamental questions about motherhood, introducing the
politics of race as it relates to the child-welfare laws in this country. Leaf, who never knew her father, gleans some
of this experience from her little sister, Corinna, who is 16-years younger, an
adoptee from an open adoption who never saw her birth mom again, curiously
making a brief appearance in the photo studio next to several guys. Easily the biggest surprise is adding dreamlike
sequences that are Gia’s avenue of escape, which only add depth and complexity,
as we gain insight into her interior imagination and daydreams, capturing the
shimmering beauty of the natural landscape surrounding the Bay area, where the
forest actually meets the ocean (shot in nearby Vallejo), conjuring up primeval
forces from deep within which mirror innate maternal feelings, where these deeply
personalized moments may be the only aspect of her life that she has any
control over, perhaps the only time she’s completely vulnerable and exposed. In stark contrast, she finds herself continually
at odds over the welfare system that has failed her, despite her best efforts,
as they routinely fail to give her another chance. Her impassive demeanor is largely a front
hiding what she really feels, as the system is quick to condemn and blame her, unable
to accumulate enough working hours to adequately support herself, always one
step behind in her bills, as she’s continually had to alter her life to
accommodate their structure, never really establishing any path for
success. Clearly she adores her
children, patiently taking the time with each one of them during their visits,
but even as she complies with all their rules and regulations, it doesn’t
change anything, as her children are still stuck in a system that refuses to
recognize her as a positive influence.
Making things more complicated is another baby is on the way, who she’s
at risk of losing as well, where none of the fathers have any role to play, as
they are simply absent. Honestly, Gia
has no use for any of them, believing she’s better off on her own. As part of her support system, she has
regular visits with a social worker named Carmen (Erika Alexander from The Cosby Show in the early 90’s), who
attempts to guide her through her pregnancy, reminding her that they’re both part
of a system that is designed “to work against women like us,” providing her
with options that include adoption, something most white women are never
encouraged to consider, as too often black women are encouraged to give up
their children, where Gia has grown so untrustworthy that she thinks Carmen’s
job is selling black babies to white families.
This should not come as a big surprise, as there’s no one that Gia has
come to trust, literally no one, as people she thinks are her allies in the
system quickly turn on her, so she suspects even those with the best of
intentions. The question in the back of
her mind is always wondering if there are ulterior motives. Trust is largely a forgotten commodity in her
neighborhood, replaced by heavily guarded anxieties and fears, while also plagued
by guilt, which seem to dominate her life, yet she tries to overlook all these
factors, living her best life, fraught with tension, where the only thing for
certain is the future is unknown. Shot with
a bracing directness on 16mm by Jody Lee Lipes, who also shot Kenneth Lonergan’s
2016
Top Ten List #5 Manchester by the Sea and Sean Durkin’s 2011
Top Ten Films of the Year #5 Martha Marcy May Marlene, with new age music
by singer, songwriter, and cellist Kelsey Lu that feels completely original, providing
contemporary electronic ambience, accentuating the harp with lofty female
voices during the finale that add an extra dimension to the film, taking us
into unexplored regions.
